Julie & Julia Review
By Karen Dahlstrom
Child at Heart
Julia Child was, in every sense, a towering figure in the culinary world. Big of body and of personality, she made French cuisine accessible and appealing to American home cooks. Both canonized and lampooned, her show "The French Chef" was groundbreaking ― spawning generations of celebrity chefs, foodies and devoted fans. One of those fans, Julie Powell, was so enamored of Child and her recipes that she wrote a blog about it. That blog eventually became a book, which has now become a movie, written and directed by Nora Ephron.
Based on both Powell's book, "Julie & Julia", and Child's memoir "My Life in France", Ephron creates a film with two contrasting tales: Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and her awakening to French cuisine and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), who uses Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" as a sort of
I Ching for sorting out her own life. Though the womens' stories are meant to parallel one another, it's an uneven and unfair comparison. As a result, "Julie and Julia" seem like two competing films. One is an entertaining and fascinating portrait of a true original, as rich and satisfying as a bowl of chocolate mousse. The other feels like the soggy leftovers from "chick flicks" of years past.
The usually sparkling Amy Adams is doused in dreariness as the neurotic, self-doubting Powell. An aspiring writer and editor in college, Powell has all but given up her literary pursuits. A post-9/11 government worker living in a tiny apartment in Queens, she uses cooking as her refuge from the stresses of the day. Powell finds it hard not to compare her life to that of her more successful friends. When one of them puts up a popular blog, she decides to start one of her own. She sets a goal to cook all 524 recipes in Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year, for the sole reason of proving she could finish something.
Blogging is, by nature, a singularly self-involved, narcissistic activity. It's not long before Powell is obsessed with the number of readers and commenters she receives, rather than expanding her culinary knowledge. As her following grows, her monomania begins to alienate her husband, Eric (Chris Messina). Adams and Ephron do little to make Powell an endearing or even an interesting character. Particularly when compared with Child, Powell simply comes off as an irrelevant amalgam of Ephron's syrupy rom-com female leads.
By contrast, the "Julia" sequences are wonderfully buoyant and entertaining. It is once again a testament to the brilliance of Meryl Streep that she gives so complete a flesh-and-blood rendering of Child within only half a movie. Teetering on 4" heels to approximate her imposing physical frame, Streep perfectly masters Child's warbling speech and dramatic gestures. But her performance is more than simply an impersonation. Streep sinks her teeth into the role of a woman with an expansive spirit, passion, humor and a will of iron.
Stationed in Paris in the late 40s with her diplomat husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci), Child falls immediately in love with all things French, particularly French cuisine. As she samples her first meal ― a beautiful sole meunière ― her entire being glows as if she's received a revelation from God. Her fascination with the cuisine eventually leads her to the venerable Cordon Bleu cooking school. Despite prejudice against her gender, nationality and basic skill set, Child doggedly (and cheerfully) masters every task in front of her. As Julia's adoring husband, Tucci complements Streep perfectly. His calm presence and unfailing support grounds her and compels her to persevere in light of her setbacks.
Julia and Paul are such compelling, fascinating characters, it seems a shame they didn't warrant a whole movie to themselves. Of the two movies narratives in "Julie & Julia", it is "Julia" that one really wants to see. The other seems merely a distraction. Even before she became the American doyenne of French cuisine, Child led a fascinating life ― merely hinted at in the movie ― and created an enduring legacy through hard work and passion. She brought boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin to a culture of Jell-O and marshmallow fluff and pioneered an entire industry. Powell's accomplishment, on the other hand, seems trivial and superficial in comparison. As a result, the film seems as lopsided as a fallen soufflé.
